Monthly Archives: July 2012

It could be said that people love to share. Whether a person wants to transfer a recipe or an idea, there is an audience available. The Internet allows people to share just about anything, including music.

If a person wishes to share music, it is unnecessary to burn a disc. Burning a disc may take a significant amount of time to accomplish. On top of this, a person that wants the disc may be unable to receive it right away; this leads to frustration for both parties. However, the Internet allows a person to get the music from the CD through an email. Sharing can also be done on a website chosen by a participant.

2. Sharing Takes Place at Any Hour of the Day

No matter what time of the day it is, a person can easily exchange digital items with another person. In the past, it was necessary to wait until a reasonable hour before exchanging items; school buildings and college campuses were typical locations. Exchanging the item may take some time if one person is in another part of the building. However, the Internet allows people to share items at midnight or noon. It does not matter what the time zone is. There is little reason to leave an area to make a transaction or plan something.

3. Sharing Can Go Quickly

Sharing on the Internet is fast; a person can download a video or album within a few minutes. There are websites available for a person to search when he or she wants something specific; if he or she wants a sharing website that deals with foreign music, there are several on the Internet. A person can locate a website with files numbering in the thousands. People do not have to look far to find something that is appealing to them. When they click on a link, they get what they want in a swift manner.

4. People Believe That Items Should Be Free or Cheap

The Internet influences how people perceive pricing. People have grown up in a world where items are free on peer sharing websites. Because of this, it is not uncommon for an individual to believe that items should be free or cheap. The individual may assume that he or she should get something without paying money. People may go out of their way to avoid paying for something. This belief is all over the Internet, and it is likely to stay in the public conscience for some time. It cannot change overnight no matter what.

Citations:

Peter Wendt is a writer from Austin, Texas. He loves researching and writing on a variety of topics, including technology and the influence of the Internet in our daily lives. If you are in need of Internet access, he recommends this wireless Internet solution.

Let’s face it, flying can be a stressful process for business travel. Between navigating your way through airports, security checks and staying on time, it can be mentally and physically taxing. To combat the pains of traditional flying, it’s smart to use a privateair charter for your business travel. On that note, let’s discuss some reasons why this form of travel is beneficial.

Convenience
Perhaps the biggest advantage is simply the convenience. When flying on a traditional, public airplane, there are numerous complications to deal with. For example, you have to stick to a rigid flight schedule and will often be faced with delays that can affect the rest of your schedule. Using a private air charter is better because you don’t have to worry about these hassles. Instead, you can depart whenever you’re ready and don’t have to worry about missing your flight. You also don’t have to worry about standing in ticket lines or baggage check-ins which should save considerable time. For this reason, you can relax and don’t have to rush around airports in an attempt to catch your flight.

Security
Another perk is the level of security you can enjoy with a private air charter. Since you will only be flying with people in your group, you don’t have to worry about potentially dangerous situations that sometimes arise when flying. Due to the inherent risk that comes with flying with a group of strangers in a commercial airplane, flying privately should leave you feeling much more at ease. Also, you don’t have to deal with security checkpoints of commercial airports and the often intensive screening procedures.

Luxury
Along with this, you should experience a level of luxury that’s impossible with most commercial flights. For example, you won’t have to be uncomfortably crammed into small seats with strangers. This can be especially nice if you’re prone to feeling claustrophobic in certain situations. You don’t have to deal with the boarding and unboarding process where you often have to stand in line for lengthy periods of time. You should have access to fine catering and better meals than on a public flight. You don’t have to fight for the attention of a stewardess to be served. It’s also more relaxed in general and should have you feeling more refreshed once you arrive at your destination.

Closer to Your Desintation
In addition, you have much better options when it comes to the airport you pick as your destination. For example, many commercial flights require you to land in large airports in big cities. The problem is that these locations are sometimes up to 100 miles away from your intended destination. When this happens, it makes it even more stressful to stick to your schedule. However, flying privately means that you have more of a choice when it comes to the airport you land at. This means that you can land in smaller cities that are significantly closer to your final destination.

Many employers are looking for methods to help improve employee productivity. Individuals who work at home are also concerned with increasing their own efficiency. Enhancing the aesthetics and functionality of your office furniture is one creative way to boost employee output. Investing in ergonomic and stylish office equipment can bring in solid productivity to defray the cost of buying new furniture.

Ergonomics
Comfortable and ergonomic furniture is a great way to increase productivity in your business. If you or your employees spend the majority of the day sitting at a desk while using a computer, certain parts of the body may begin to suffer from stress injuries. These stress injuries occur from frequent repetitive movements, such as using a computer mouse or keyboard. These injuries can include wrist strain, an aching back, eye strain and headaches. Ergonomic furniture helps individuals perform their daily tasks in a form more natural to the body to help reduce the risk of injury. This furniture also helps to decrease the amount of time you or an employee must take off due to a stress injury, thus maintaining the continuous flow of productive work.

Office chairs are a good first investment for ergonomic furniture. Many computer accessories, such as keyboards, have ergonomic versions as well. Additionally, chairs and desks should be set to the correct height to keep an employee’s computer monitor at eye level.

A Stylish Look
Selecting stylish furniture can also help boost office efficiency. Sterile office spaces are boring and uninspiring. Workers are less likely to look forward to clocking in if they work in an environment befitting a hospital. Taking time to choose stylish furniture shows your employees that you are interested in investing in your office space. Today, it’s possible to find office furniture that is both aesthetically pleasing and comfortable to use.

Mentally StimulatingInteresting office spaces can prod the brain into having random bursts of inspiration. A bored employee who stares at a blank wall with no interesting visual features is more likely to fall asleep than feel the rush of a new idea. An office that features eye-catching furniture is far more likely to encourage a worker’s brain to think about challenges in a new way. Additionally, arranging office furniture in an appealing way can help stimulate the brain. Avoid the boring cubicle look to keep your workers interested in their job.

Just Like Home
An office space that is comfortable and pleasing to the eye is likely to make one feel right at home. Workers who are comfortable in their environment are far more likely to remain calm and relaxed throughout the day. A comfortable and stylish office space shows your employees that you are invested in their success. For individuals who work at home, a pleasant office space helps them to define the line between their home and their work space. A feeling of ease and style helps inspire many people to perform up to their potential.

What makes a great graphic? Honestly, there are a thousand and one different answers to that question. It can depend on many things including what the graphic is for, who the graphic is for, where the graphic is for, when the graphic…you get the idea.
For the purpose of the post, we will have a look at what the graphic is for.
Technically speaking, reproduction of graphics is at quite an advanced level. Think about it; graphics can be created and placed onto just about any surface or platform we can get our hands on. A couple of great examples of tried and tested platforms for printed graphics are magazines and billboards. Both of these platforms have the ability to be seen at any time and by anyone. Information can be presented and then examined selectively at the reader’s leisure which allows for a very high level of creativity in the graphic. A key point with these platforms, however, is realising that the media may not necessarily have the viewers’ full attention. How often do people go out purely to check out a billboard? Exactly! Billboard images are a great example of trying to create graphics that instantly attract the attention of passers-by who probably don’t care that it is there.
Magazines differ as they generally attract the attention of people who hold an active interest in their content. Needless to say, every item within the magazine, from articles to adverts, will be geared towards the active interest of these interested people and therefore the graphics should follow suit. As with billboards the graphics should be striking, after all they will be competing against every other graphic in the publication. The big problem is you’ll never know what else will be in the publication and this is where the creativity comes into play. Creative, striking graphics will attract readers; simple!
There is no magic formula to creating a graphic that is exactly what you need. There will be a number of external influences that will affect what you can, can’t, should and shouldn’t do but considering what your graphic is for in the first place is a great start and a great platform to build off. It may take a while to put together, it may come to you in a dream in the middle of the night or it might even just accidentally come together! Whatever happens, considering all possible factors is the only sure-fire way to guarantee the creation of something that you want and more importantly, your intended target public want.
And if you’re still stuck at the end? You could always just offer the free beer?

Every now and then, a vendor or supplier truly out does themselves in service, the buying experience, and value.

My recent experience with of all things, a roofing company, was such a time.

Founded in 1982 by J Saber, an energetic gentlemen that looks very much like the Santa Cruz mountain Gnome, his company proves once again that you can’t judge a book by its cover. I seem to remember one of the founders of Apple Computer had a similar look. If you look at some of the properties that they have worked on, it becomes quite apparent that this guy is the real deal. His son Ryan has more or less taken over business operations on the San Francisco Peninsula and it is with him that I worked the most. Ryan met with me daily to review the progress of the job, and fully explain any additional work that needed to be done. He and his crew were some of the most affable workers I’ve ever seen. They actually seem to be enjoying doing their work.

As a result of many long years of hard and arduous labor and the silicon valley I own a triplex near the Atherton border. It had been roughly 35 years since the last roof was put on this ancient edifice, and I was terrified to find what might lay under the roof when we ripped off. Saber and his crew had the tear off done in one day, and I was delighted to find there was only minor damage to some of the plywood. They were able to replace that in no time, and assure me the rest of the roof was sound.

I can really tell a quality company by the attention to detail and the user experience. Every evening before the crew left, each speck of dust, each dropped nail, and every bit of debris was cleaned to the point you could not tell they had ever been there.

Another thing I greatly appreciate is honesty and integrity. There were several opportunity’s for them to take advantage of a simple homeowner as to the amount of time certain repairs might have taken. I happen to have had a few years in the construction industry myself after college, and was extremely heartened that at no time did they try to blow smoke up my hiney about how long something would take. They also had a significant cost overrun due to the fact that their estimator underestimated the square footage of the roof, costing them a few thousand dollars. Ryan admitted his mistake, and at no time hinted about charging me more.

Feel free to check out their diamond certified five star references on yelp. For those of you lucky enough to live on the San Francisco Peninsula, I recommend Saber Roofing very highly. For those of you not quite so fortunate I can only offer you a few photographs.

How do you create great outdoor advertising? What separates an advert which passers-by recall despite only seeing for a matter of seconds from an advert which a passer-by claims to have never seen before, despite the fact the advert has been plastered on a 20m square board?
A large number of things separate these actually.
The most important thing to remember is that generally people who are outdoors don’t want to be marketed to so may be in a mode which is specifically set to ignore everything whilst they are getting from A to B. Therefore getting their attention is vital and the main aim. There are a number of ways to grab their attention and the most obvious way is creativity. If someone spots something which they believe to be creative, often this is their very first thought regardless of what it might be representing. Half the battle is getting the attention of passers-by so if you’re outdoor advert has a level of creativity which stops public dead in their tracks and draws a protracted “Ooooooh” from their mouth, well you may just be on for a winner. You may have seen a fair few examples of these “Ooooooh” adverts, namely the Kit Kat bench advert and the Cadbury’s half-eaten billboard. If you haven’t seen them, have a search online.
Another important factor to remember is the limited time which a passer-by might have to fully absorb the information from the advert. If your advert contains around three paragraphs of text but is next to a road where drivers will have approached, been in-line with and passed the advert within a matter of five seconds, there is a very high chance that they did not read any of your three carefully worded paragraphs. Generally, less is best, although this is not always the case in certain situations.
Like with any advertising campaign, you need to make sure that you carefully plan out the delivery and execution of your advert. You can create an outdoor advert to the likes of which the world has never ever seen before, but if it’s sat on a side street which receives no traffic it is definitely a wasted effort. Outdoor advertising allows for masses amount of creativity and you can create campaigns that are truly memorable, as long as careful consideration is given to the unique set of circumstances which comes as part of the package with advertising outdoors.

Investors all over the world have been stunned by China’s defying job market economics. Workers across many countries have experienced the slowest run of economic growth in three years, causing a cull in jobs and a bleak global outlook for the job market.

However in China, the very place investors have been most concerned about, has reported the highest amount of job vacancies in over a decade, despite six continuous quarters of slow growth.

Workers in China have found themselves in the luxury position of picking and choosing their jobs, defying the faltering job market and leaving hoards of investors scratching their heads.

Fire to Rehire

During the height of the recession, thousands of businesses based on the mainland let go of a countless number of workers to stem the leak in their financial losses. However, when the economy rebounded quicker than expected, the same businesses ended up paying more to rehire the same workers.

As the world’s second largest economy moves up the industrial value chain and becomes ever-more eye-catching to businesses looking to invest, there is still a huge shortage in skilled staff.

What’s also impressive is that China has managed to punch through this global default even with their shifting demographic, brought on by its government’s one child only policy.

Learning from their mistakes, businesses have instead cut the hours of their works, instead of their jobs all together.

Workers Taking Control

If China’s export and output dip doesn’t improve, things could quickly go from bad to worse for the country’s firms. However there have been some positive results from job fairs in Beijing and Shanghai, which suggest that instead of hiding in the job market recession, employees were actively looking for new work.

The world renowned media agency Reuters reported that among the people looking for fresh work at the job fairs, most had just left school, and had only been searching for work for less than two months.

Furthermore, the rest were looking to quit their manual labour, uninspiring and tiresome jobs for better employment prospects and more money.

In short, China has more job vacancies than there are people to fill them. This fact has been backed up by data of China’s urban labour to supply ratio, which has remained above 1 for seven solid and consecutive quarters.

Socially, very few workers actually felt the full effects of the job market slowdown, or even felt that their job was under threat. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – China’s job boom is causing people to reassess their quality of life and look for better employment.

Timid Statistics

Although house prices in China are holding at a record high, workers refuse to compromise on pay. The government have surprisingly agreed, declaring that the minimum wage will grow by at least 13 per cent by 2015.

However, during the economic downturn in 2008, China had to inject 4-trillion Yuan into its economy to provide stability as well as social rest, though this was a knock-on effect after 20 million factory workers lost their jobs in a matter of months.

Although official unemployment data has remained static at 4-4.3 per cent since it was published in 2004, the data omits around 160 million rural migrant workers whose status is in a constant state of flux.

As the Chinese Communist party’s once-a-decade leadership transition is due this year, the risk of social discontent from unemployment remains high. However the party remains extremely sensitive to these issues, and continues to put a focus on jobs and employment, which is playing a key indicator in the country’s successful economic rise.

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